I’ll start with a question: who won the tournament and main event in the first-ever WWF pay-per-view? It wasn’t Hulk Hogan, Bob Backlund, Randy Savage, Roddy Piper, Andre the Giant, or even the Iron Sheik. Given the promotion’s reluctance to elevate Black wrestlers—let alone avoid outright mockery of them—it might surprise you to learn that it was the Junkyard Dog.
It’s worth reflecting on how, at a time well before the first Black WWE champion was crowned, and when McMahon seemed incapable of portraying Black wrestlers as anything other than angry (Bad News Brown, Farooq) or as dancers (Sapphire, Flash Funk, the Godfather), JYD somehow rose above that injustice and was booked to win The Wrestling Classic in 1985.
Yes, The Wrestling Classic took place seven months after WrestleMania I, but WrestleMania I was not technically a pay-per-view as we know it—it was a closed-circuit event. Yes, you had to pay to view it, but you also had to go to an arena or theater to do so. The Wrestling Classic was an experiment to see if fans would pay to watch a wrestling show broadcast directly into their homes. Today, this might seem quaint—could wrestling really be a viable TV pay-per-view product?
Of course, it was, and we now know that pay-per-views ultimately became the cornerstone around which national promotions built and continue to build their products. As such, The Wrestling Classic is an important landmark in the wrestling industry, as significant as the first Starrcade or the first WrestleMania. And the fact that a Black wrestler took the tournament title and won the main event of that pay-per-view is especially notable.
In that sense, JYD joins the ranks of civil rights pioneers in wrestling, like Bearcat Wright, Ron Simmons, The Rock, and Kofi Kingston—figures I chronicled last week here at TWM—as a key trailblazer for Black wrestlers.
JYD overcoming McMahon’s problematic booking was no small feat either. Like Daniel Bryan, Kevin Owens, or Rey Mysterio who would follow, JYD’s popularity with the fans pre-WWF/E had already solidified his name and gimmick, preventing the WWF from packaging him in whatever ridiculous persona McMahon might have concocted. It’s no secret that McMahon’s 1980s booking was racist by today’s standards (and by many standards of that era too). Oddly, this racism was most apparent in the repackaging of two white men: One Man Gang as Akeem the African Dream, and Dusty Rhodes paired with the dancing Sapphire—something I discussed at length a couple of weeks ago for OMG’s 60th birthday, and in previous columns about the American Dream. It also shows in the absurdly long delay before a Black wrestler was booked to win the WWF world title, which came well after Ron Simmons won the world title in WCW in 1992.
Who knows what McMahon would have done with JYD had he not arrived fully formed, with a lingo and style all his own that fans adored?
Junkyard Dog, real name Sylvester Ritter, hailed from North Carolina, and it was in the southern territories that he became a star and a household name. Many credit JYD as the first Black wrestler to perform as the top face of a promotion. Wrestling under various names, including “Big Daddy Ritter,” he started in Tennessee for Jerry Jarrett and in Stu Hart’s Stampede Wrestling in Calgary, where he won Stampede’s version of the NWA North American Title. He then moved back south to Bill Watts’ NWA Mid-South Wrestling (later the Universal Wrestling Federation), where he adopted the gimmick that catapulted him to stardom.
As the Junkyard Dog, he wore a chain and collar and brought a cart of heavy-duty junk to the ring to use if needed (a la New Jack). More important than his look and character was his connection with the fans, especially his tendency to bring kids into the ring to dance after matches. That, combined with his smooth, fast, southern talking style and unique linguistic quirks—like using the onomatopoeia “Thump!” instead of naming an in-ring move or later describing grabbing a butt as “grabbing them cakes”—made him an instant star and indeed Mid-South’s top face (not unlike The Rock a decade later in the WWF: think “candy ass” instead of “cakes”). Again, he was awarded the promotion’s version of the NWA North American Title.
Under Watts’ innovative booking, JYD had high-profile feuds with the Freebirds, Ted DiBiase, King Kong Bundy, Ernie Ladd, Kamala, and his protégé-turned-enemy, Butch Reed. These rivalries garnered major heat and continued to endear JYD to fans. Eventually, like many territory wrestlers who became the biggest names in their area in the early 80s, the WWF and Vince McMahon came calling for the Junkyard Dog.
While JYD remained in the mid-card there (as many top NWA stars did in the WWF), he stayed immensely popular, and McMahon had the savvy to capitalize on that. Indeed, JYD won the tournament at the first pay-per-view, defeating Randy Savage no less in the finals of The Wrestling Classic (Hogan and Piper were busy continuing their WrestleMania I feud and were not in the tournament). Perhaps just as significantly for action figure collectors, he was also one of the Series 1 Wrestling Superstars from LJN, included in the first run of WWF action figures.
While the Hasbro figures would eventually become more synonymous with the WWF, the early LJN figures were the first. For JYD to be included in that initial run alongside Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, and Roddy Piper is huge. It suggests his profitability at the time and now stands as another way JYD broke barriers in pop culture as the first Black wrestler with an action figure.
In 1988, the newly formed WCW lured JYD away from the WWF, where he was eventually reunited with Bill Watts (again, check out last week’s article on Ron Simmons for more about Watts and WCW). For five years, he was used much as he had been in the WWF: a mid-carder whose popularity put him in a special class of marketability. Clash of Champions VI in 1989 was booked in New Orleans’ Louisiana Superdome, largely on the strength of JYD’s popularity there. Appropriately, JYD received a grand jazz band entrance for that Clash, where he battled old rival Butch Reed. At one point in 1991-92, Watts, knowing how over JYD had gotten in Mid-South/UWF, considered putting the WCW title on him. However, by then, Sylvester Ritter’s demons were catching up with him, and his work was starting to decline.
Like many wrestlers of his era, Sylvester Ritter struggled with substance abuse issues. By the early 90s, heavy alcohol and cocaine use had begun to take a physical toll. In 1993, he left WCW and only appeared at a few independent shows over the next couple of years before leaving the business after 1995.
Unfortunately, as Dave Meltzer noted in his heartfelt article honoring JYD after his death in the June 15, 1998, issue of The Wrestling Observer, Ritter spent his final years bouncing around without a permanent address. He worked for Wal-Mart in Las Vegas, with a repossession agency in Mississippi, and tried—unsuccessfully—to secure cameo appearances or even a returning role with either WCW or the WWF, neither of which were interested during the Monday Night War/Attitude Era. He continued to try but never defeated his addictions.
On June 1, 1998, Sylvester Ritter was driving home to Mississippi from his parents’ home in North Carolina after attending his daughter’s graduation (sadly, Meltzer reported, he actually arrived late and missed the ceremony). Near Forest, Mississippi, for unknown reasons, Ritter lost control of his vehicle, and his car rolled over three times. He was killed in the accident. When he was buried a week later back in North Carolina, nearly the entire town turned out for the funeral. Along with the slew of wrestlers and promoters who sent well wishes and flowers, Michael Jordan made a personal phone call to the family.
While many narratives of Junkyard Dog’s career focus on what could have been had his popular run not been cut short by addiction, let us not forget his milestones. Among the pantheon of important Black wrestlers, Junkyard Dog still looms large.
